Inspiration for Financial Services Transformation, from IOT to Amazon

Disruption by its very nature is an agitator, but there is no reason it can’t be turned into inspiration. Let’s look at developments from the Internet of Things (IOT) to convenience shopping on Amazon, all of which can help financial services companies amidst FinTech, but really, can help any enterprise. We can then outline how an enterprise content management (ECM) strategy can launch you safely into your own transformation.

First, consider how sensors and contextual information can inform how you shape, price and deliver your market offerings. A great example? As the latest automobiles roll out with telematics that track mileage, speed and driving behavior, there is a chance to reinvent offerings like insurance plans. Rather than plans that apply a blanket risk to all drivers in an age range, insurance companies can individualize risk and price accordingly, thanks to IOT data.

Now, take it a step further – if you’re a car company, why not partner with an insurance company to provide purpose-built cars for new drivers? Equip them with more sensors, in exchange for the better insurance package. Chances are, you will not only sell many such packages, but you might help reduce collision risk overall, as monitored teenagers slow down, knowing their car is sensored.

For house insurance, the same idea is possible by sending drones to accident sites to objectively capture information. Fraud goes down, while claim processing speeds up. If the flooded washing machine calls in the drone automatically, even better. Similarly, home IOT devices are only getting more connected, with smoke alarms sending alerts to smart phones, and house shutters automatically closing when a tornado alert is issued. Do any of these new communication paths and data loops create good reasons for you to help your customers?

Second, start to make connections between different IOT types and different industries. Many people today wear heart monitoring or fitness wrist bands. Could those be tied to auto-trigger financial decisions? As blood pressure boils, is that a good time to liquidize some assets for emergency use? It sounds far fetched, but the concept here is that learning more about what’s impacting your customers can make you more proactive to help in meaningful ways.

This type of thinking may help you uncover new partnerships. I have seen a mobile phone company offer contracts that include free life insurance. Later, those policies are upsold for a new source of customer acquisition. Consider healthcare companies that share your customer base and how you could work together, or automotive companies or manufacturers. What could you do together to delight your joint customers?

Finally, use the magic wands of convenience and retention and cast them across IOT. You might say a spell: “bring me ample customers who are happy to pay me.”

You might be surprised how many of your customers care for convenience far more than the actual value initially driving your product’s creation. For Amazon, the service began selling books, then added millions of items. Most recently, it rolled out Pantry for capturing day-to-day purchases.

This is no longer just a play to cut out middlemen and cost. In fact, Pantry may cost more for a customer than visiting a store or using different shipping methods per store. It is convenience built into the Amazon experience that makes customers willing to buy practically anything through the service. Knowing Amazon is continually adding new ideas couples this convenience with a stronger motivation to stay loyal. At time of this blog writing, news broke they are looking at brick and mortar grocery stores. Amazon customers may have their license plates read as they pull in and pick up pre-ordered food!

There are many more examples, from kids choosing their coffee shop based on free wifi availability, to busy urbanites choosing only restaurants that offer valet parking together with their secured reservation. Loyalty and retention goes to those providers who make life convenient and better, sometimes in seemingly small ways.

All of these scenarios involve transforming how you look at and evolve your business. All of them have one thing in common – the never-ending need to manage content, house it, and use it.

We have already covered in previous blogs the need to look at your value chain and how to harness innovations, but I encourage you to especially consider IOT and the need for convenience in your transformation and ECM planning.

For a bank, this might mean ensuring data feeds from Google Alexa data, to identify which customers are always asking for an Uber or Lyft, then partnering with those companies to bulk-buy free rides for $100k+ deposit customers. For an insurance company, maybe it’s airplane tickets bought on a sister credit card that prompts travel insurance automatically texted to the customer, pre-flight.

If you are a Mac user and have had to search hundreds of photos, you know how their search capabilities can save you hours to find “Mom” pictures, tagged through facial recognition. For a bank, it might be as simple as giving your checking customers better mobile device search terms – “Suzy meeting” or “new printer” — to help them speed tax document preparation. Instead of sifting through transactions by date or account type, their broadened ability to search POS device data or mobile app purchasing info removes hassles on their end, and shows you understand their bigger world.

Before any creative use of technology, start by learning as much as you can about your customers. Draw inspiration from the 26 billion new IOT devices Gartner predicts by 2020 to help you do this, as well as the new content and data that IOT sensors enable.